That Way
by goldvermilion87
Summary: John brings Sherlock a the case of a man who has been injured and cannot explain why. Written for yaycoffee in this round of holmestice.


**That Way**

"That was Ashley about a possible case."

"The piebald one?"

John gave a puzzled scowl.

"You know," Sherlock brushed his hand through the hair on the right side of his head and looked exaggeratedly sullen.

"Yes, the one who shaves half her head. You know, I would understand you a lot more quickly if you talked less like Medieval dictionary, and more like a normal human being."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "The first dictionary—"

"Man with a missing memory. Severe trauma to the right temporal lobe resulting in—"

"Drunken brawl. Or stumbled after leaving the pub."

"—resulting in severe retrograde amnesia, mild receptive aphasia, and—"

"Boring!"

"His intellect and information processing abilities are compromised—"

"Memento mori!"

John swallowed. "_And_ he thinks he is in Manila."

"He's mad."

"More than that, he's never been to Manila."

"Of course. He's delusional."

"He's describing it."

"I know you are not very technologically adept, but you _have _heard of the internet, John. They say almost anyone can access it."

"But he remembers smells and sounds. Ashley lived there for three years. She says he must have been there."

"Not necess—"

"Mycroft is interested."

Sherlock sat up. "What do you mean? How do you know?"

"Everyone has a superpower, Sherlock. Mine – finally! – is knowing when Mycroft and his minions are nearby."

"Don't be melodramatic."

"Says the man who introduced Mycroft as his _Arch-Enemy_. I am not spending one more day in this nicotine-stained flat. I haven't forgotten our bargain, by the way."

"You're a soldier. You don't care."

"I have been a civilian for ten years. And a man can get used to living in a house without nicotine stains and smells. You promised you would have it cleaned. Now will you take the case or not?"

"Maybe."

* * *

_It was that smell – the smell like sewage and humidity that you caught a whiff of occasionally in London. But here it was inside him. He couldn't escape. He didn't want to escape – didn't want to know that his body was becoming used to it. He heard the rumble a thousand engines the staccato of blaring horns. He opened his eyes slowly. _

_A woman was running towards him._

_"What happened?" he heard her ask, while gently running her fingers over his sticky skull._

_"I . . . I . . . " he swallowed. "I . . ."_

_"Lie still while I call the A&E. We're not far."_

_"No! No! Not . . ." He tried to think of the words – a vague memory of a face he knew telling him about hospitals in this country. The lack of sanitation. "Not . . ."_

_And everything went black._

* * *

"Where precisely did you find him?"

Near the Westminster Bridge. I think he'd pulled himself out of the water.

"And what did he say to you?"

"Not very much. The trauma has resulted in amnesia and expressive aphasia. I think he was afraid of the hospital."

Sherlock half smirked at John, who pretended not to notice.

"Which is why I am about to check up on him. Oh! When he woke, he was much calmer, and tried to ask where he was. As far as we can tell, he is surprised to be in London. "

"Why do you say that?"

"He keeps saying 'Manila' and looks confused when we talk about London. "

"I will talk to him." Sherlock started for the door.

"No! He's sleeping."

Sherlock brushed her hand off his arm, and swept into the room. "Grant Hatherly! I want to talk to you."

* * *

"_Now_ can we start?" Sherlock was pacing the room while John and Ashley calmed Grant down. They had propped Grant against some pillows. He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and nodded his head.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about how you got here."

"Dark . . . wet . . . hot." He stopped for a longer time. "Manila."

"It was dark and muggy and you were in Manila?"

Grant nodded.

"Why?"

Grant shook his head.

"You don't know?"

He nodded.

"You must have flown out." Sherlock pulled a chair right next to the bed, and sat in it. "Tell me everything you can remember about the flight."

"Cold . . . " He looked around the room. "Blind?"

"You couldn't see?"

Grant nodded again.

"Were you in pain? Was that when you were hit on the head?"

"N-no. No."

"When did it happen?"

"Manila. No . . . no . . . brain. Brain . . ." He shook his head.

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"But not on the aeroplane. You remember that? You were in no pain during the flight?"

Grant was emphatic.

"That's what Ashley said as well," John muttered.

Sherlock ignored him. "What is your occupation?"

Grant looked pained for several moments and then drummed on the table with his fingers.

"You are a secretary?"

"Show." Grant waved his hand.

"You are a teacher who teaches computers."

"Why are you asking things that you've already read in his file?"

"John, when could I possibly have read his file? His hands made it painfully obvious that he was a teacher. Were it not for his injuries I would have known it immediately. But I also prefer to hear facts from the source. That will be enough for now." And Sherlock swept out of the room.

John stuffed his notebook into his pocket before thanking Grant and running after Sherlock.

"So, what do you think it was , Sherlock?" John panted as he caught up to Sherlock at the lift.

"Too early to tell."

"Guess?"

"I never guess."

John looked through his notes again. What could one computer science instructor have that could make him valuable enough to abduct and torture? Good connections? Maybe he had a valuable computer code? He looked thoughtfully at Sherlock.

"John, the conclusion of _that_ story was that Moriarty never had a computer code."

"Fair enough." They walked in silence for several minutes and then John waited on the pavement while Sherlock went into a crowded Starbucks for coffee.

When he had returned with his free coffee and pastry ("Mr. Khan said you wasn't never to pay here, Mr. Holmes!") and hailed a cab, John said, "What if _he_ is the criminal? Perhaps he abused his students and someone wanted to make him pay?"

Sherlock snorted. "Closer than you've been and still nowhere near to the mark."

John glared. "You tell me, then."

Sherlock just tossed the pastry at him.

* * *

"John! I told you that if your _superpower _is to know when my brother is nearby, then you're meant to tell me!"

"Interesting." John didn't even open his eyes. "That was around the same time that I mentioned something about those nicotine stains."

The door swung open and Mycroft walked in.

"You're not welcome here, Mycroft."

"Yes you are!" John stood up and shook Mycroft's hand. "It's good to see you. I apologize for the nicotine smell. It's not dangerous – you won't get lung cancer – but it's still unpleasant."

Sherlock glared at them both.

"Thank you, John." Mycroft sat himself slowly into the chair John was gesturing towards.

"What do you want, Mycroft?" Sherlock managed to make the simple question sound like the harshest of insults.

"Just come to check on you."

"_Check_ on me? I'm not alone anymore. I don't need you to keep slinking in to make sure I haven't drowned in the bath."

"No, but you are my brother, and I haven't seen you in person for several months."

"Tea, Mycroft?" John was walking toward the kitchen.

"Yes, thank you." He turned back to Sherlock. "How are you, Sherlock? How goes the detecting?"

"We are on _your_ case."

Mycroft looked puzzled. "What case is that?"

"The attempted murder of Grant Hatherly. John saw your people lurking around the hospital."

"When the princess of Wales has appendicitis, and there have been terrorist threats made against the royal family, we do not leave the hospital in the hands of the secret service alone."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed.

"I always protect what is mine, Sherlock."

John walked back into the room with three cups of tea, two balanced precariously on top of one another in his left hand. He handed one to Mycroft, placed the second in reach of Sherlock, and sat down. John ignored the little twitch of distaste Mycroft made when he took his first sip – _how _did Mycroft know whenever he left the tea leaves in ten seconds extra? – and then chatted amiably for several minutes.

When John brought the milk back into the kitchen, Mycroft said goodbye to the back of Sherlock's head, pausing a moment to note the minute changes in the pattern of grey.

* * *

"Sherlock, get out of your room! I don't want to deal with the cleaning crew on my own. And you've been locked in your room with your computer for over twenty-four hours now. Your doctor said if you don't get proper exercise and rest, there will be dire consequences."

"He said no such thing!"

John dropped his head against the locked door and groaned. "I just did! Now, Sherlock, if—"

There was a scream from the living room. John ran in to comfort a hyperventilating woman pointing at something white in the corner. "Plastic. It's only plastic. You'll be fine," he said, and then stomped back towards Sherlock's door.

He had just decided to kick it in when Sherlock opened it.

"Did you leave a rotting finger _behind my chair_?

"That is at least two years old! Months before you agreed to move ba—"

"If she finds anything else, _you_ get to talk to her."

Sherlock pushed past him, dropped the finger bone onto a hall table and then grabbed his coat. "No one is going to talk to her. We're going out."

John shoved the bone inside a drawer and ran down the stairs to catch up.

"Where are we going?"

"Mycroft's. He'll be home now. Too early on a Saturday to be anywhere else."

"What did you find?"

"Some interesting information about our friend Mr. Hatherly."

When Sherlock didn't offer any more information, John opened a book on his phone.

* * *

Mycroft was sitting in his breakfast room with a newspaper. He looked up when Sherlock burst in and swatted the newspaper into a cup of tea.

"What do you have to tell me about Mr. Grant Hatherly?" Mycroft picked the paper back up.

"I know what you did. And I can speculate as to why."

John muttered something under his breath that sounded like "guest."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. "Tell me."

"The hospital had faulty information. Grant went to Manila when he was a small child. That's where he got his memories — the powerful scent memory in particular."

"How do you know that?"

"He said he was on an aeroplane. Yet, he was not. Why would he lie about something like that? And I tracked back his IP address to a computer in the Philippines."

"Hang on!" John had raised his hand as if in school. "If he said he was on a plane and his computer says he was in the Philippines, how do you know that he _wasn't_ in the Philippines?"

"People can reroute IP addresses."

"Yes, but _how do you know_?"

Mycroft chuckled. "You still need to relearn communication?"

"He _never_ learned that," John said.

"You're a doctor and you didn't notice, John?"

"Notice _what_?"

"Ha! 'Love is blind' is the phrase, yes – and the effects are permanent? You observe less now that you did before—"

"Sherlock!" John warned.

When Sherlock caught John's eye he stopped suddenly, and when he began speaking again he sounded less flippant. "Grant Hatherly has a severely deviated septum, and it manifests in almost constant heavy congestion. Do you remember when I asked him if he was in pain on the flight?"

"Yes. He said he hadn't been in much pain."

"The pain he would have experienced with the kind of pressure he has on his Eustachian tubes would have been to a degree that he could not have forgotten it."

"Oh."

"Not to mention the fact that a government-employed hacker known worldwide in the cybercrime community would never allow his IP address to be traceable." He smirked at Mycroft. "I assume he used the Philippines, not only because he has been there, but because it is almost on the opposite side of the world to England, where the London-based cyberterrorist organization he had been trying to take down – RHL, they call themselves – is centered. My hours on the internet, _John_, allowed me to infiltrate the group and discover his true intentions. He planned to sell out to RHL – cliché. From what I gather he backed out at the last minute, and one of them managed to trace his location and sent thugs after him. But that's all. You should certainly fire him, and you may have to change some of your cyber security. I could do it but don't call me. I'm not interested."

"Thank you, Sherlock. Your information adds the last piece to the puzzle. And as there are many hackers far more skilled than you are in cyberspace, I have no doubt that we will be able to undo the damage."

Sherlock stopped preening and glared at his brother. "What?"

"I needed his activities monitored without involving the government itself. You were the cheapest and most convenient agent."

"Most con—"

"Yes. Though you were wrong in one important respect, Sherlock."

John giggled at Sherlock's horrified face.

"Grant Hatherly never worked for us. He presented himself that way to RHL. But he gained all his information on his own. He was a great hacker."

"Was?"

"The brain damage was not all faked. He had no amnesia. But the expressive aphasia is real, and the doctor's prognosis is not encouraging. He may never be able to type a line of code again." Mycroft paused for a moment. "We do not know for certain why he was beaten and left for dead. You may be correct to think that he decided against sharing his information. But there are a thousand other possible reasons. Perhaps we will find out when we bring in his associates. Thank you again, Sherlock. Your work is very passable."

"Come on, John." Sherlock was already out the door.

Right before John closed it behind him, Sherlock turned and called back.

"By the way – the American Homeland Security's databases are not as damaged as they appear. And since, as you say, my work is merely passable, I'm sure someone will be able to undo it with little difficulty."

John had never heard Mycroft make such an undignified noise.

* * *

"John! I need something! Work! Isn't there _anything_ in the papers?!"

"Nothing so far. I'll – Sherlock! What was the name of the hacker?"

"Grant Hatherly."

"He's dead."

Sherlock walked over to John and read over his shoulder. "That was suicide."

"How—"

"Obvious from the manner of death, but the motive is conclusive. " He turned abruptly and walked toward the kitchen. "I'm going to make tea."

"What motive?"

At the doorway he turned around. He stared at a point just behind John. "He lost his ability to program – his work." His hands clenched and unclenched a few times. "What other option did he have?"

"Thousands." John swallowed. "A person could lose worse, Sherlock," he said quietly.

Sherlock's eyes snapped up and held John's for a few seconds before he shrugged and looked around the room for something to do.


End file.
